Windows 7 - Wireless connection before login possible?

Is there a way for Windows 7 to connect to a wireless network before a user has logged in?

I have found no good answers to this question elsewhere. Some say it should already be happening if I am using Windows' connection management (WLAN AutoConnect, formerly WirelessZero), but I am using that, and it is not. I can sit at the login screen for as long as you please and it will not connect (watching the router from a separate PC), moments after I login it will connect.

Others have said that you need to use the manufacturer's connection management (not Windows'), and they can sometimes have the option for prelogin/prelogon connections, but I am using generic drivers. The device is a Netgear/Cisco WMP300N, with a Broadcom chipset. Netgear/Cisco and Broadcom all claim to not have drivers for Win7, but Win7 apparently comes with a functional driver.

Try adding an entry in the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run registry key.

In a command prompt, get the name of your profile by running netsh wlan show profile

Then in registry editor, add a string value to the above mentioned key. Call it anything, but its value should be something like

%comspec% /c netsh wlan connect name="<profile name>"

If there are no profiles available, make sure the automatically connect option is on (although from your question, it appears to be on).